Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Small Gods ❯ Three Months and Forever ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Author's Note: today I shall introduce a rather interesting character. Mind you keep an open thought for him and know that he is a manipulative man. Furthermore I shall not say. For your reading pleasure is the rest to discover.

It had been as normal a morning as Naruto experienced in the last three months. He woke up to find that it would be one of those days he would have to use his feet, literally. The weighted knot pulled at his legs uncomfortably, but that was all he had thought of it. Naruto’s mind was elsewhere as he fluidly elevated his feet up to his mouth and pulled at the knot. Weeks ago, no matter the mass of the statue in the knot he was able to raise it. Sometimes he had a bit of difficulty, but it was easily adapted to. He really had no idea how much it was that he was lifting now. When he picked up the first fragments of the twenty kilo stone fox, they felt like feathers in his hands. Naruto was somewhat at a loss to explain why, but his body felt like a spring. Any weight seemed like no weight at all. And it slightly disturbed him when not only did the fragments of the stone fox feel like feathers, they shattered into dust when he applied the lightest pressure.
“That was an interesting day,” he mulled as he untied the rope.
After discovering the freakish change in his strength Naruto had spent the day jumping, running, and generally causing mayhem faster and higher than he had ever done before. He felt taller, and upon closer inspection when he visited Suna for supplies and to send letters, Naruto found that he was. He nearly fell over when he saw his reflection. The person staring back at him was not what he had expected, to say the least.
Finding his robes cumbersome at times, Naruto was prone to divest himself of clothes during training. Why not? No one was around for miles, though he was much more careful with his skin after the day that certain nether regions obtained the sun’s wrath. In any case, he had known he was darker than before but in the stark whiteness of the walls that surrounded him, his tan was as brown as a baked turkey.
His face had been gaunt under his hair, the shoulder-length ray of messy golden spikes. The high cheekbones of his skull were prominent below the skin. Arms and legs were thin and wiry, corded with new muscle and sinew. This person had hands that looked as if they could easily strangle another human being. That was not him. It could not be him.
Naruto had only been able to look in the mirror for so long.
He had fled from the room in a dazed fear of what he had seen. It had only been three months…How could he have changed so much in so little time? Now, when he walked in the streets of Suna he could easily be mistaken for a native of the village. And often he was until the people glimpsed the Konoha hiyate plate glinting off his left arm. His knowledge about the desert was such that, they also accepted him into their dusty ranks. Many a day he had visited the village to meet with Gaara, only to get caught up in some thing or other. He welcomed it gladly but --- the ach in his heart for the greenery of Konoha’s eternal forests was breath taking. With the acceptance from the Suna villagers, and the way he looked now --- Naruto felt as if he would never be able to return home quite as wholly as he had left it. The truth of the matter was that he now had two places in his life that called to him; homes.
He had consulted the Mentor about this in a note (rudely mind you). That had been two sunrises ago, and no reply was forth coming.
Naruto’s train of thought was disturbed by the sudden loosening of the ropes. He felt the weight fall away and hit the ground with a resounding smack. Where the remains of each morning’s escape went, he didn’t know. They just disappeared whenever he left the cleft. With practiced ease he started on the knots his hands were bound in. About a month ago his ropes had a new twist in them, which had been the most frustrating of all elements he had faced before in the Mentor’s trickery. Charka inhibiting ropes were bound about his frame. If he were anywhere within two meters of the blasted stuff his jutsus were rendered useless. So he had had to depend on his own basic skills, which had taken time, but now he was used to it. Skin, mind, and all.
The knots his hands were tied in slithered off in a matter of minutes. Springing with unusual grace he landed softly on the ground next to his pack, and, unsurprised, found the note he had been waiting for.
‘Change is but the wind in the air. It starts from nothing, the smallest of breezes. But it can be felt, and seen. Till it is the greatest of hurricanes, sweeping the land. It is the manifesting of inner strength. However the wind is accepted, is up to the one who blows it.’
Naruto grimaced.
“Ya could have made that a little harder to decipher old man. A three year old could do it,” he mumbled.
Long ago Naruto decided that the Mentor was a cranky old bastard of a man. This whole ‘tie up the unsuspecting youth’ thing was just some crackpot’s game. The Akatsuki had nothing to do with it. No matter. The note wasn’t hard to figure out, but Naruto’s true reason for complaining lay within himself. He knew what the Mentor was getting at. He didn’t have to like it.
He sighed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
Accept the changes huh…
Well he wasn’t asking for much was he?
Naruto surveyed his camp. It was hardly recognizable from the crack in the rock it had been three months ago. Naruto had carved shelves into the cliff side where his belongings were stacked. There was even a larger shelf he had blasted to make a small but sheltered space to use as a sleeping bunk. There were hanging carpets from the village that he had received for doing various tasks. They were flattened on the ground as well. It was a comfortable place that had only one rule; NEVER start a fire in the cleft. The smoke filled up the small area quickly, and it took days to get the smell to air out. Naruto did all his cooking on the plateau flats above.
Naruto picked through this week’s supplies. Instant ramen? Nah, tired of that. Suna wheat-meal? He only ate that when he had to… Preserved dried jerky, samphir greens, mushrooms, some spices. Yup that would do, do for a stew. Naruto grinned madly and produced a large pot from the pack. It had been a gift from one of the villagers. He hadn’t known what to do with it for the longest time until he found that putting several ramen packets in it at once made twice the ramen in twice the time. He’d never questioned the use of a pot again.
Jamming the pot down on his head like some comically distorted version of a helmet, he stuffed the chosen foods from the pack into a small pouch which he tied to his side. He knew that cloth and rope would come in handy some day.
Naruto leapt up and bounded off. There was an underground freshwater spring nearby that he had found a little while ago when exploring the vast network of the plateau caves. It wasn’t a large spring, but it was clean and that would do just as well. Naruto arrived at the cave entrance and shouted in jest
“Heeelll-ooo-ooo!”
Cupping his hand to his ear he listened to the echo reverberating off the walls and smiled. He imagined the sound shooting around in the darkness like a loose bullet. He figured if there were such things as cave monsters, he’d make them go deaf long before they ever realized he was there. Childish, but fun nonetheless.
He jogged into the darkness whistling a random tune of notes and headed for the spring. He found it easy enough with the scant light glancing of its surface in soft flickers. The spring was a source of constant interest for Naruto. The way the reflections mirrored and webbed across its surface were mesmerizing and hypnotic. He felt an ancient sort of awe from the silent water, every time --- every time.
He removed the pot from his head with a light metal ringing and drew it through the water till it lifted full. Excess liquid dropped off into the small pool almost musically in the cool darkness.
Naruto stayed a few moments, just listening, and then got up to leave. He was very careful balancing the pot in his hands. No water would spill. It was a brisk two minute walk back to the camp and then to the plateau top. After finding the use of the pot Naruto had been stumped on how to carry it without sloshing anything over the edges. Let alone jump up onto a cliff that was twenty feet higher than him. It had come down to practice. Every day he balanced that damned pot, filled to the brim, on his hands, his feet, his head even, until he could run like a shooting arrow without spilling a single drop.
He reached the camp and jumped in one leap, a veritable human spring, up onto the plateau. Sunrise was just ending with the great blazing circle clearing the horizon and drifting up into the sky. Naruto shoved some previously gathered sticks into the fire pit he had made recently and struck a flint tinderbox to light it. A few sharp cracks against the grated metal produced a mighty spark which caught, and flared. Naruto waited a little and dumped a log onto the fire, it another gift from the village, a stack of firewood. Out in the desert where such things were scarce, it was a rich gift, Naruto used it sparingly.
He balanced a flat slab of shale over the fire pit on the rock ring surrounding it. The fire licked out from underneath hungrily and quickly heated the shale. It was a good way to cook, since Naruto had found that a grill was messy, and difficult to clean. He set the pot on the shale and let it boil. In a little while he opened the sack at his waist and produced the ingredients he’d chosen. The jerky was torn into chunks and the samphir greens shredded. These Naruto tossed into the spitting water of the pot and began slicing the mushrooms with a sharpened kunai. They were diced to bite size when he chucked them in the brewing stew as well. Now for flavor. A small brown-capped bottle contained rock pepper and salt. Naruto uncapped the container and shook out a little of the spice. Using the flat of the kunai he crushed the pebbles of salt and pepper to specks and dusted them off a rock into the stew. It would be a bit sandy, his food always was these days, but it was nothing he wasn’t already used to.
The mixture simmered for a while, and when it had darkened to a light brown Naruto wrapped his hands in the cloth of the sack and drew the pot off the heated shimmering shale.
There was a light breeze that day, playing with anything that wasn’t tied down or too heavy to move. The stew had been good when he ate some, the rest would be rationed for later. The taste of salty meat and vegetable lingered in his mouth as he went on to his morning run and memory fogged through his brain.
He had changed.
So quickly, so slowly, he hadn’t noticed it happening. It was as if the person he had been was an infinite amount of time away, yet it had only been three months --- three months…
Three months ago Naruto would have sneered at the insinuation that he could like any food more than ramen, but he did. In time he had discovered the wild zing of the samphir green, the tanging bite of Kaffya - a drink much favored by the residents of Suna - Gaara included. He was no longer as small as when he first arrived. Three months and he was on equal footing with the Kazekage in height, superior in strength. Three months and his habits went from loud to calm. Three months and he could cut a rock to atoms with chakra alone. Three months --- and forever.
Naruto realized with a little sadness as he ran that what ever he had been could not be brought back. He had grown comfortable with his new state of mind, mirthful but reserved. It had become a habit of his to review the day, and those previous to it in his head. Picking out details, turning things over in his head. He’d yet to attempt his ultimate goal. The Kyuubi could not be beaten, not yet at any rate. Naruto estimated that he was at about the halfway mark. Given another three months, he doubted he would recognize himself in any way at all…
Naruto ran harder, fast as he could, trying to outrace the sick feeling in his gut.
‘How ever the wind is accepted, is up to the one who blows it.”
He ran.
Faster than the wind.

Tired, more tired than he had been in a long time, Naruto stumbled back to camp that night in a pitiable state. He had pushed himself to his limits and beyond. There were fresh gashes on his forearms from multiple backfires when he was practicing an new jutsu. Just using his chakra of late he had been trying hard as he could to enhance the first stages of the finished elemental Rasengan into an entirely different technique. It was both draining and dangerous work. Naruto’s chakra was wind based, which was part of the reason he chose to train in such an arid place as the Northern Desert.
His idea consisted of weaving the abilities of Tsunade’s super strength and Neji’s chakra emission. Naruto figured that if he was simultaneously able to emit chakra from any part of his body, not only sharpened but with force behind it, he could just easily have a defense mechanism that was both offensive and defensive. The trouble with the idea was that control of his chakra without letting the Kyuubi’s bleed into his own was near on impossible at times when he was attempting something difficult.
Near impossible, only near.
For his semi-failed efforts Naruto wore the blood on his arms with wearied dignity. He’d try again, tomorrow. He crawled into his bunk slowly, mindful of the stinging in his arms. They’d heal on their own for now. Although his healing ability had dropped quite a bit years ago, it was still dependable enough to fix minor abrasions like these.
His eyes drew half-lidded with slumber.
Maybe…
Maybe he’d get it right…
“Tomorrow.”

It is very discomforting to know that you are moved every night without knowing how it is done. It is absolutely terrifying to wake up in the middle of the night to see a great hulking darkness leaning over you. Which is what Naruto saw when he was startled into the waking world by a shadowed figure that was dragging him by his feet out of the sleeping shelf.
Faster than he knew, Naruto had a wickedly sharpened kunai pressed against the bandaged throat of his perceived attacker.
“Who are you.” He said roughly, nerves jangling in violent discord.
The figure put up its hands in surrender.
A man’s voice answered him, youthful and strong with no rasp at the end of it.
“No one suspicious, I assure you.”
Naruto looked on with a humorless stare.
“You’re kidding right?” He said.
“I wake up in the middle of the night and find you dragging me off to do gods know what, and you expect me to believe that you mean no harm? No harm at all. Nooo. No I don’t think that’s going to fly buddy. So why don’t you skip the innocent act and tell me what the hell is going on here?”
The man laughed.
“Just as crude as I expected! Tell me, is it not unusual for you to be awake at this hour? Regardless of the circumstances I mean.”
Naruto looked confused for a moment and thought about what the stranger had said. It was true that he never woke up during the night, it was always in the morning that he… woke to find himself hanging from a ledge…
Oh, hell no.
Naruto withdrew his kunai and slammed it into the cliff wall. Stomping over into a corner he plucked an oil lamp off a shelf and lit it. Stamping the ground back to where the cloaked man stood Naruto angrily hung the lamp from the rock-embedded kunai.
In the swinging light he could discern that the other’s man’s face and hands were bandaged, leaving room only for dark eyes to glitter out from under a deep set cowl. Naruto had never seen this person before, but that silent air of mocking crypticism was unmistakable. He’d read it, insulted it, made a list of one hundred ways to kill it over the last three months.
Naruto glowered at the man and a maniacally deadly smile shivered over his features.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” He said while cracking his knuckles loudly. The man just stood there, head tilted in mild interest.
“Why whatever are you referring to?” He feigned innocence, almost as dead-panned-well as Kakashi managed. Naruto wouldn’t be surprised if he found that the two were related.
“You’re the bastard who strings me up every night in those damned knots. Eh? I’m right aren’t I?” Naruto began to do a series of stretches on his legs and arms. The man put a musing hand to his chin.
“Well, I do seem to remember doing something of the sort everyday. Why do you ask?” He said, as if this were a normal conversation and they were discussing the weather.
“Just making sure I didn’t have the wrong guy.” Naruto sing-songed from a crouching stretch on the ground.
“Can you run fast?” Naruto called up from his stretch, which looked suspiciously like the formation a runner takes at the start of a marathon.
“Why certainly,” the man replied. “I’m quite fast, actually.”
Naruto hiked up his knees and poised himself for flight.
“Good, good,” he said.
“You’re going to need that speed.”
“Why is that?” The man asked curiously.
“Because,” Naruto explained quite calmly.
“When I catch you I’m going to find very creative ways to kill you, slowly, painfully. That sort of deal.”
“Oh?” The hooded stranger said. “I guess I’ll be off then.”
The man took off at an alarming pace, but then, so did Naruto. The blonde shinobi roared after the ‘Mentor’ and shouted blazing epithets at his back.
“BASTARD! I’M GONNA PLUCK OUT YOUR TONAILS AND FORCE YOU TO EAT EM! I’LL HAVE YOU STRUNG BY YOUR THUMBS OVER A PIT OF BOILING LAVA! EVEN IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO! ARRGH!”
The night wore on in the Northern Desert, filled with the high screaming of a very angry teenager and one laughing man. The moon set and the sun rose, and from the window of his office in Suna, Gaara could see a continuous line of dust rising from the plains.